


Florida Thunderstorms

by milesofregrets



Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Presumed Dead, Rain, Short, set during book 1, ship if u squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26262976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milesofregrets/pseuds/milesofregrets
Summary: It's been three weeks since Jacob Portman went missing.Ricky Pickering knows better than to assume he's alive.He's tried drinking, smoking, popping pills and passing out in the woods night after night, but all that ever gets him a hangover so bad he wishes he'd been the one eaten by wild dogs. He can't forget about the look on Jacob's face the night his Grandpa died, or the last conversation they'd ever had together, or even the dozens of orange bottles that'd lined the counter on his birthday, so instead he decides to confront his anger, once and for all. To go to the park and find Jacob's memorial and ask him why.Why he left.Only it's much harder to be angry at a dead kid than a memory.
Relationships: Ricky Pickering/Jacob Portman
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Florida Thunderstorms

**Author's Note:**

> gays in florida

"Look."

A tall, muscular figure dressed in cheap, stained leather and covered head to toe with piercings stood in front of a short willow tree, his hair greener than it's measly leaves.

The tree itself was a sad excuse for a memorial, skinny, drooping, and dying, and the small shrine below it was no different. A faded out photo and a once-lit candle surrounded by cheap dollar store roses and tulips were nestled sadly in the grass, barely sheltered from the drizzling rain. The boy bent down and straightened the tattered umbrella that kept the photo safe, trying to work up the courage to say something, anything.

"I'm shit at apologies."

"We both are, and you've known that about me for a long time. So... I'll do ya a favor and keep this short."

Ricky took a deep breath, and put his head in his hands, fingers curling through his curly dyed hair. The wilting flowers in front of him seemed like a weak representation of the person who he wished could have been there in the flesh, but they would have to do for now, dry petals whispering in the wind like some kind of mockery of a second voice.

"I, uh. I know you took your old man's death really hard. I... I guess I never really understood that because I never let that shit bother me. My dad left, but I was five and I never got the chance to mourn because my mom didn't let me. Then she got deep into the hard stuff, but I told myself I didn't give a fuck because she never gave one about me."

He felt nothing if not stupid, spitting out nonsense about his feelings and kneeling there in front of some shitty old polaroid like it made any fucking difference. 

Jacob was still dead. 

The police said missing, but the looks on his parent's faces said otherwise, and Ricky may have been a dumbass, but he wasn't that stupid.

Jacob was... he was dead.

"But you were never that fucked up, 'cause you still had a part of you that cared. Cared what people told you, and a part that was dumb enough to think that bad things didn't happen to the people you loved."

Raindrops ran down his neck and through the fabric of his shirt, but he ignored them. He was used to Florida thunderstorms. What he wasn't used to, though, was talking honestly, and he shook his head with a small, self-deprecating laugh.

"Ah, this is all bullshit. What I'm trying to say is... I'm sorry I didn't... I didn't get it, I guess. I shoulda... I don't know. I shoulda stuck around. I still think you're a bit of a dick for saying what you said, but I'm telling you I get it."

There was no answer. Never was.

Just the rain.

"I'M FUCKING SORRY!" he screamed to the base of the tree, no longer able to control his rage or his tears.

The weather had turned into a downpour, and as he collapsed into himself, the water soaked through his clothes and his skin. His back heaved and his hands shook so he tucked them closer to his body. He felt so fucking emotional but so empty it was practically killing him.

He sat there for what felt like hours, letting his knees go numb in the mud and letting his lungs burn out with sobs, but in the end all it got him was red eyes and a bit of a headache. Turns out real grief wasn't too different from weed.

So he leaned back on his ankles, wiping his face with a more soaked shirt, and looked at the wax long-hardened on a candle that had been burned once and never again. 

There was nothing but the old school photo, taken Jacob's freshman year of high school. He looked awkward. As lanky and nervous as any 14 year old, with a fake smile and a lost looking expression. He was just a fucking kid.  
The picture meant nothing. It was a flimsy cardboard cutout of Jacob's real smile plastered on with the desperation of parents who never really knew their son. They didn't understand him or even listen to him, and now he was gone forever and all that was left of him was a fucking yearbook photo.

Ricky sighed, and felt his eyes begin burn a little as his shaking hand balled up into a fist.

"You could say something." he snapped towards the fluttering picture.

The storm was loud in his ear, the familiar patter of raindrops filling the silence in the conversation.  
The clouds drifted on, as they always did.

"You're a real asshole, Jacob Portman. You know that?" Ricky hissed, fighting off another round of tears.

His boots slipped in the loose mud as he stood in an instant, stumbling back from that fucking picture and his old friend's blank, empty smile. He blinked, watching the black umbrella catch a gust of wind and spin away into the thunder and rain, and looked away from disintegrating flowers and lost children with his breath fast and heavy, heart pounding in his ears.  
He ran.

When the storm cleared up, Ricky and his footprints were gone.

Jacob was too.


End file.
